Fuel-air explosive (FAE) bombs are employed for defeating wheeled vehicles, neutralizing land mines, destroying natural and artificial camouflage to expose battlefield emplacements, etc. FAE munitions utilize foliage-descriminating fuzes which actuate on impact with the target, explosively rupturing thin-walled warheads and dispersing highly volatile liquid fuels into aerosol clouds. The clouds are detonated automatically by delay detonators from center-burster charges that formed the FAE clouds. Generally, the FAE requires a predictable time delay of the order of 100 to 1000 milliseconds.
Methods previously employed to ignite the FAE utilize conventional mechanical or electrical initiation devices. A major disadvantage of such devices is their inability to withstand adequately the high shock loading imposed by the bomb impact (e.g., 100,000 g's) and the high acceleration produced when the initiators are ejected from the bomb. Additional disadvantages include the inability of electrical time fuzes to function accurately to provide delay times approaching one second or longer, as well as the problem of providing a battery storage life of at least 10 years required for military use. Other conventional igniters which rely on percussion contact with the ground or other object are not suitable for such application, since there is no solid object within the aerosol cloud of the FAE.